Crisis & Risk ManagementHow does a favourable prior reputation create expectations about how an organisation should respond to a company crisis?

The title give to the question., and the question it self do not seem to go well together.

To begin with crisis and risk management are two very distinctly separate functions. Risk management refers to actions that a company may take to reduce the losses incurred in future due to uncertainty of future developments and events. Crisis management refers to the way of dealing with a sudden major problem that need to be solved or suitably handled quickly.

Now coming to the main question, it is important that the way of handling a crisis and the implication of past reputation on appropriate response to a crisis will very much depend on the nature of crisis. For some types of crisis the past reputation may not have much implication while in others types of crisis it will make a big difference. For example if the crisis situation has been developed by a fire in the manufacturing plant the reputation of the company does not play very important role in nature of solution. But if the crisis has developed by a large consignment of a product of a food manufacturing company found to be infected, the reputation of a company will play a major role in determining the right approach to the crisis.

In general a good reputation may make handling of the crisis easier or difficult depending on the situation. A good reputation may increase the severity of a crisis when it tend to tarnish the good image of the company. In other case a good image among general may become an asset in handling opposition by a small but powerful group of people.